


Fix You Up

by flawlesspeasant



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctor/Patient, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-09-30 13:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20447795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawlesspeasant/pseuds/flawlesspeasant
Summary: Eve is a high-powered, court appointed psychiatrist who is tasked with evaluating and diagnosing Villanelle, an ex-assassin on death row for murdering the Prime Minister. As the two grow closer and their sessions get longer, the boundaries between doctor and patient steadily blur, and Eve walks a dangerous line between risking her career by trusting a psychopath, and trying to prove her innocence.





	1. You Should Start By Calling Me Villanelle

* * *

* * *

It wasn’t until I sat down that I realized just how nervous I was.

Or maybe it was the excitement that masked everything else I was feeling until then, and gave me the false illusion that I wasn’t, in fact, a giant ball of anxiety. I started to feel like I was fraud, like I had gone to the thrift shop and bought a mask that hid my true identity, and everyone around me was idiotic enough to believe I was exactly who I said I was.

I started to wonder what exactly brought me to where I was, and started to wonder if maybe I was going a little bit crazy because nervous as I was, I still couldn’t bring myself to regret my decision.

Adrenaline is a pretty powerful thing. It’s like a drug in a way, and it coursed through my veins in place of my blood. When I flipped open my notebook and picked up my pen, my hand shook so badly that I ended up etching a few short tick-marks in the margins of the empty paper. I put the pen down, looked up at the ceiling, and took a moment to steady myself.

_ Breathe, Eve. You know what you’re doing. _

Niko’d told me once that whenever I’m having an anxiety attack that I should focus on the tangible objects around me. Something I can see, something I can hear, something I can smell, and something I can touch.

_ Breathe. _

I always thought Niko was full of absolute shit sometimes, but the green/gray water stain in the drop ceiling above me suddenly seemed interesting enough to get my hand to stop shaking, so maybe there is some merit to the advice he’d given me.

I stared at the water stain longer than I’m comfortable admitting, and thought, _ that’s a nasty leak and they ought to look into that. _

I stared until it started to turn white again, like when you push on a bruise and your skin returns back to its normal color instead of that ugly black and blue. The ceiling was its normal white self again.

My heart felt like it was beating normally again, my hands loose but not shaking. I took my tongue from the roof of my mouth. Unclenched my jaw. Eased my shoulders. Feet flat on the floor. One more deep breath and as if it were right on cue, the door buzzed and I heard the snicker of the lock unlatching.

_ Showtime. _

I picked the pen up again, turned to an empty sheet of notebook paper, and sat up straight because confident was the best I could look. In the few moments it took for the guards to usher her in, I tucked a loose tight black curl behind my ear, and felt my tongue go back to the roof of my mouth. Tension returned.

There were two of them, each holding one of her arms. And I thought, _ she can’t be more than a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, why does there need to be two of you? _ She wore shackles around ankles that bookended two long, slender legs. Muscular — I could tell — even through the ill-fitting, loose, heather-gray pants. Handcuffs clinked around bony wrists, but her fingers were long and feminine, nails clean. 

_ She takes care of herself. _

She sat down in the cold metal chair right across from me, and her spine went straight even without support from the back of the chair. Shoulders square, chin up, eyes on me. _ Finishing school posture, _ I thought. _ But when did she ever have time to go? _

“Keep your hands on the table where I can see them,” the bigger guard mumbled in her ear. His voice was rough, gravelly. Probably supposed to be intimidating, but she didn’t flinch. In fact, she wore a hint of a smile on her full lips. It made her already high cheekbones that much more prominent. “And no funny business.”

“What, you don’t think I’m hilarious?” she said, and I knew in that moment that I was making a memory.

My high school best friend used to think that I was weird, but there are times in my life where I experience things, and I know that I am going to remember them. It’s like I feel the gears grinding together in my brain, and I can feel them manually generating a memory. 

_ I am going to remember this moment. _

Hearing her voice for the first time. It sounded low, but rich. Like she was speaking into a microphone, except she really wasn’t. It carried through the entire room and bounced off the drywalls. And her accent — heavily Russian — was so thick that it fell harsh on my ears, yet I couldn’t wait to hear her speak more. 

It almost felt like it wasn’t happening to me. At least, not fully. It was like I wasn’t the one sitting in the chair across from her, like it was another Eve Polastri, and I was the one just up floating in the corner watching it all go down. _ Are there really two of me? _ Sometimes, it sure feels like it. 

“You’ve got half an hour,” the other guard spat — this time at me — and suddenly I remembered that I was there for a purpose. He slammed the door shut behind them when they left, and I swallowed a knot in my throat when I heard the lock latch again. I calmed myself only by the sight of them, armed, still standing outside the door. _ I can scream if I need help. _

“H-hi,” my voice didn’t feel like it belonged to me. _ Really, Eve? Hi? Are you a toddler? You can’t do better than that? _“I’m —“

“Why do you have a notebook?” her eyes fell on the notebook, then back up at me. “Are you going to write everything I say?”

“That’s the idea, yeah.” For some reason, she made me more nervous than I already was. I clicked my pen open, then clicked it shut. 

**Open. Shut. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. Open —**

Her eyebrows furrowed, “Will you stop that already? It makes me want to hit you in the face.” 

“I’m sorry, I — I mean, I —“

“Are you a real doctor?”

“Huh?”

“Huh?” She mocked me, and I swear to God I could feel my cheeks turn bright red. “Do you even speak English?”

“I am,” I tucked that same pesky curl behind my ear again and sat up a little straighter. She was starting to see behind my facade, and I couldn’t let that happen. “I have a degree in, um, criminal psychology. And I do. I do speak English, by the way.”

“Criminal psychology.” 

“Yes.”

She sat back in the chair and tilted her head to the side, as if she was just finally getting a real good look at me. Her eyes, wide-set and glossy, narrowed. She seemed to look right through me. Her permanent grin turned up a little more, and her lips parted to show two rows of perfectly straight, milky white teeth. For a moment, I had to remember how old she was. Because I swear, it seemed like maybe she was a child. “So you think I’m a criminal,” she said. And I don’t know what was more chilling when she said that: the fact that she said it so monotonous or the fact that she seemed amused when she did. 

She raised her eyebrows. Daring me to answer. I felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of my neck. 

“I think that there’s something you need to work through, yes. But I don’t think —“

“I don’t care what you think, Eve. Can I call you Eve?” It was scary how quickly her voice could go back to that bone-chilling seriousness, and even more terrifying how her eyes could hold a sense of nothingness behind them. She was every bit of the extraordinary I thought she would be, and I was off my game.

I didn’t really plan to be as afraid of her as I was.

In hindsight, I think I was acting so out of sorts because I still couldn’t believe it was happening. What started out as mere way to get out of writing reports, fetching coffee, and fielding Carolyn’s unimportant phone calls had somehow festered and became this. Became me, sitting across from an undiagnosed but undeniable maniac. Somehow I’d managed to convince everybody at the MI6 that I, a desk clerk, could evaluate, diagnose her, and pin her to a murder — a murder I’m not even sure she committed.

I sat up a little straighter this time, because part of overcoming fear is mostly acting like you aren’t scared at all.

“You can call me whatever you like,” I said, and I put as much confidence behind it as possible.

“Good,” her lips pursed when she enunciated the word. “Are you here to fix me, Eve?”

“I’m here to learn everything I can about you, Oksana.” 

I put my pen down yet again, and this time, I close my notebook as well. Taking notes suddenly doesn’t seem that important anymore. Instead, I slowly reach my hand into my pocket, and press “go” on the tape recorder.

“Then you should start by calling me Villanelle.”

I sit back in my chair and get comfortable, because I know I’m going to be here a while.


	2. If You Learn Anything From Me

* * *

* * *

I decided that I had never met anyone quite like her before.

It was sometime between passing the post office and me and Bill’s favorite pub that I had come to that conclusion. Her case file was scattered on my passenger’s seat; a mess of unorganized court documents and arrest records that I would read through later, and all I could clearly see was her picture paperclipped to the top of the Manila folder. At every stop sign and every red light, I looked over and stole glances at it. Partly because I still couldn’t believe that I had put myself way in over my head and _ done _this thing, but mostly because it felt like if I didn’t keep an eye on it, it would disappear. Like this was all a dream or something.

It was like she was burned in the back of my mind, and I kept running through our session over and over and over again in my mind. Some parts of her had become fuzzy but when they did, I looked at her picture and was reminded each time just how ethereal everything about her seemed. She was probably the most attractive woman I’d ever met, easily. I don’t pay much attention to most women since a good bit of them don’t interest me, but I doubt that I had ever come across one who looked like her.

But it wasn’t her appearance that I found myself latched onto.

When she spoke, her words flowed from her mouth like a quiet river on a summer’s day. For the dry humor she so effortlessly possessed, it would take me nearly an hour to come up with things as witty. Yet, it was reflexive for her; part of her nature. The way she stared at me was challenging, but welcoming at the same time. I’d met dozens of interesting characters while working for Carolyn these last three years, but nobody quite like that. Nobody that was as paradoxical as she was.

I pulled my car into the driveway behind Niko’s, and shoved everything into my purse. I don’t know why, but it still felt like I was doing something wrong and I didn’t want to get caught. I knew when I walked through the door that Niko would ask me how it went, because all I gave him this morning was that I was going to the prison to meet my new client. He was eager, but I couldn’t give him any more than that then, and I’m not sure I can give him any more than that now.

How do I explain to him that I can feel that my life is forever changed after speaking with her for just half an hour? How do I tell him that meeting her was one of those splitting events? You know when some big cataclysmic event happens that splits your life into two separate halves? And for the rest of your life, everything is categorized into “before” and “after”? 

Meeting her was that.

From now until the day I die, everything that happens to me will be Before Villanelle and After Villanelle.

And in order for me to make you understand — to really do this story justice? 

I have to start from the very beginning. 

* * *

Nothing that day was out of the ordinary and there were no possible signs that my life was going to change, but I guess there never are any warnings before your life is completely upended and everything you thought you knew about yourself was proven false.

I took the steps two at a time while fastening the three middle buttons on my sweater, and was pulling my hair up into a lazy ponytail when I rounded the corner to enter the kitchen. Niko was dressed for work too, scraping a massive pancake onto a plate and tossing the spatula into the sink. I remember thinking that he looked handsome when he wore beige and had his hair slicked back. It was a slight reminder of why I fell in love with him in the first place and lately, those reminders had been far and few between.

My husband is dumb, by the way.

I don’t say that to be rude, I don’t say that to be crass, I say that because it is the sad truth and I figure it’s best to be honest because you have to trust me while I’m telling this story and what better way to build up trust than to be honest?

He graduated college and is a schoolteacher, so I guess by society’s standards, he’s a smart man. As good looking as he is intelligent, too. But I’m a woman who needs more. He kicks my ass regularly in chess, but only because I let him win. He scores higher than me when we watch Jeopardy! on American TV, but only because I purposely give the wrong answers. And I’m not saying that I’m woman who thinks she has to dumb herself down to be with a man, but after years of constantly being the brains behind this operation we call a marriage, it gets exhausting and it’s just easier to let him believe that he’s smart too. 

If you take any piece of advice away from me, please let it be that if you are as hungry for knowledge as I am, marry someone who shares your love of learning. Because if you don’t? You end up bored. And standing in your kitchen watching him make pancakes and wondering what in the actual hell you saw in him past a handsome face and a teaching degree.

And before you know it, years have gone by and you are now starved for intellectual conversation with your husband, and all you really need is a better job, more money and a good vibrator so you can have one decent orgasm.

“Morning darling,” he mumbled as he wiped pancake batter from his mustache and sauntered over to the fridge where I stood for a quick peck on the cheek. I raised my face and let him kiss me.

“Morning,” I yanked open the door and grabbed a carton of orange juice from the top shelf. “Plain pancakes?”

“Blueberry,” he sounded proud of himself. “I made enough for you since they’re your favorite.” 

Okay, I lied. Scratch everything I just said a few paragraphs ago. What previously read as: 

<strike> If you take any piece of advice away from me, please let it be that if you are as hungry for knowledge as I am, marry someone who shares your love of learning. Because if you don’t? You end up bored. And standing in your kitchen watching him make pancakes and wondering what in the actual hell you saw in him past a handsome face and a teaching degree. </strike>

Should actually be: 

If you take any piece of advice away from me, please let it be that you should never, ever, absolutely not, under any circumstances lie about liking blueberry pancakes if your man is as eager to please as Niko. The first time I stayed the night over his house years ago, he made these goddamned blueberry pancakes and I was too nice to tell him that they were absolutely disgusting.

Instead, I choked down one of them and told him they were delicious. Now, at least once a week, he makes me these pancakes because he thinks I love them and I am REALLY running out of excuses for not eating them.

Moral to the story? Just tell him you don’t like the fucking pancakes.

“Ah, thanks,” I took a quick sip of the orange juice straight from the carton then put it back. “But no thanks. I’ve gotta head in early today. Carolyn said something about needing me to take notes on a meeting she’s having first thing this morning, so I’ve gotta get in before her. But thanks, though.” I grabbed one single sausage link from the glass plate in the middle of the table so he didn’t think all his hard work had gone to waste, then grabbed my briefcase from the back of the chair.

“Are you going to be home for dinner tonight?” he asked, and I was relieved because he didn’t seem too upset about me not eating the pancakes. 

“Yeah, probably. I should be out of there by around six, but if I’m going to be any later, I’ll let you know.”

“Spaghetti sound peachy? I’ll grab the stuff from the market on the way home?”

“Uh, yeah, actually that doesn’t sound —“

What happened next and ultimately interrupted me was the catalyst that set everything into motion.

The old transistor radio that Niko always used to play his music while he cooked made a god awful sound. A loud, screechy, staticky kind of noise that made me want to claw my own ears off. It was like nails on a chalkboard, but both Niko and I were too stunned to turn it the hell off. 

After screeching for maybe ten or so seconds, a low, professional-sounding voice cut through the static and gave the usual “We interrupt your music to bring you the latest breaking news. We here at Double FM radio sadly inform you that the Prime Minister has been found dead.” 

Both Niko and I exchanged looks, then had a footrace to the living room. I jumped onto the couch while he flicked on the TV. And no matter which channel he turned to, it was all over the news.

**The Prime Minister of Great Britain Has Been Murdered in His East London Home. Authorities Have No Suspects At This Time.**

Maybe I was a sick, cruel person from the start to think this way. 

Or maybe I was just starved for something to stimulate my mind. Bored, not putting my criminal psychology degree to use.

Because the first thing I thought when I heard that headline was, _ Oh my God, YES. Carolyn’s department will be investigating this, and I have GOT to get in on it somehow. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an FYI — this whole story will not be told in Eve’s point of view. Actually, Villanelle’s narration is coming in the next chapter.
> 
> And thanks to anyone who leaves kudos and comments! :]


	3. Can I Touch Your Hair?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to be clear so there’s no confusion — this is Villanelle telling the events of her and Eve’s first session together from her own point of view. This isn’t a second session. It’s the first one from the first chapter, just told from Villanelle’s point instead of Eve’s now! :)

* * *

* * *

Let me be the first to say that it didn’t happen the way they’re all saying it did.

For the most part, I didn’t sleep in the tiny little cell at night, so I mostly just lay awake and listened to whatever they had to say about me, and they had gotten the story all wrong. It was kind of humorous actually, they thought they knew me when they really had no idea.

Three of them who worked the night shift sat outside my door at night, eating donuts and getting fat and telling all their ridiculous stories about the things they’d heard. It had only been three nights, but so far I’d heard that I was an evil mistress who wanted the man for myself, that I was actually his daughter who wanted his money, and his wife hired me to get the job done after she found out he was being an ugly cheater. I have to admit, those were some pretty interesting theories, and all good reasons to kill a man. But none of them were true.

I’m not the most reliable narrator and sometimes I lie so much I don’t know that I’m doing it, but the truth is that I had nothing to do with the killing and by the end of this, I think you will hopefully be on my side. Some of the things I tell you will probably be a lie. But most of them will be the truth, and it’s up to you to decide which is which.

All I knew was that tomorrow, they were bringing me someone to talk to. A doctor, they said; someone who was supposed to try and get in my head and figure me out. I didn’t really want to at first, because all doctors are idiots who think they know more than they actually do, but when I thought about the fact that Konstantin probably set it up, I didn’t mind it so much. I think he was worried about me being in here. So worried that he sent me a therapist to talk to because he wanted me to be okay. Isn’t that just darling? You don’t do that for someone you don’t like.

He cares about me, I know he does. Sometimes he tries to make me believe that he doesn’t, but I can feel that he does and I’m really good at having feelings like that. He doesn’t think I am, but I am.

I was kind of eager to get it over with. From what I understood, the therapist would be there first thing in the morning and after they brought me my breakfast slop, they’d take me down to the conference room so I could have my session. I wasn’t excited, not even a bit. Something about talking to a stranger about myself just felt wrong, and I didn’t like it when they tried to break through to me they way they always did. At best, I just wanted to get it over with so I could say that I did everything they wanted me to and hopefully go home, back to my flat. I was beginning to miss it there.

Back then, in those first days of me being in jail, I was still really hopeful and naive. I was stupid.

I still thought that I would be going home eventually. I thought this was just temporary and in a few days, they would realize that I wasn’t the killer and they would release me and go find the real person who did it. I still thought that by the end of the first week, I’d be back with Konstantin and I’d be able to talk to him about all the things he wanted to talk about.

Even when I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes to go to sleep the night before the therapist, I thought everything was only temporary and the cops were being stupid, hunting down the wrong person. I had hope in them that they would realize it wasn’t me. Faith, I think is what they call it.

It didn’t take me long to realize how serious this was, though.

* * *

  
I wanted hair like hers.

She kept asking me all these boring questions that were meant for her to get to know me better and I answered them all — maybe not honestly, but the way I know she wanted me to answer them — but all I could think about was that I wanted hair like hers. Hair that I could run my fingers through and then shake, but not worry about how it looked after I did that because it didn’t matter if any strand was out of place. Hair that I didn’t have to brush because it looked better all tousled and messy anyway. Hair that looked better when it was wet. I wanted that.

“So I went to Oxford and continued studying. And I have a master’s in criminal psychology now. Which basically just means that I study the views, thoughts and intentions that go into —“

“I know what criminal psychology is, I’m not stupid Eve,” I interrupted her but honestly? I wish I hadn’t. I asked her how she got her degree in criminal psychology, not because I care but because I wanted to hear her talk. Her voice is frustrating me now though, and I need her to shut up.

It’s frustrating for me because I want to bottle it up and wear it on me like perfume. Or I want to take that tape recorder and keep it with me so I can listen to her voice later on tonight while I’m trying to fall asleep in my pod. 

I wished she dressed better for the occasion. I mean, I wish I dressed better too, but I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. But she did. She had all the choices and she chose to wear things that were particularly unflattering. Like the dark pair of jeans that were hidden under the table, but had lint caked all over them. The stretchy fabric was unforgiving and bunched up around her ankles, but it did allow me to guess that she was probably a pound or twenty underweight. And the coat she wore was this awful olive green color and desperately needed an iron ran over it. Underneath of it, she wore this ugly orange shirt with a hole in the breast pocket, and as if that wasn’t enough, she wore _ penny loafers. _ The real ugly ones that you would see schoolgirls wearing.

_ As soon as I get out of here, I’m going to get you some really great clothes. Ones that fit your body and hug you in all the right places. Ones that accentuate your curves and make you look even better than you already do _, I thought.

“Villanelle?” her saying my name pulled me out of my own head and kind of surprised me a bit. I know I told her a couple minutes ago that she could start by calling me Villanelle, but I really didn’t think she would. I thought maybe she’d keep calling me my other name.

“What?”

“I asked you a question.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“I asked you if I should change your name on your chart to Villanelle instead.”

“Yeah, sure,” I shrugged my shoulders. “Can I touch your hair?”

She looked at me the way most people looked at me when they were trying to decide whether I was being serious or joking. Her mouth hung open only slightly, and her eyes were fixated on me while her eyebrows contorted a bit. I thought her eyes were pretty. Almond shaped and little, and pools of chocolate brown. She had the most unique face I’d ever seen.

“...No,” she finally answered with a shake of her head. “Can I ask why you don’t go by Oksana anymore?”

“I just don’t.” I picked up a piece of the frayed end of her notebook paper and rolled it between my fingers. Then, I flicked it across the room. “This is boring. Ask me more.”

“What would you like me to ask you?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me for the reason you’re here? Aren’t you going to ask me if I really killed that man or not?”

“That’s not the only reason I’m here.”

“Then why are you?” I leaned forward and put my head down on the table in front of me. She started rambling about something, but I wasn’t paying attention. Not to her words, anyway.

_ She has amazing hair _.

I thought about the way my hands would look running through her jungle of curls. My fingers would loop through every ringlet, then grip when they got to the base of her neck. And her eyes would flutter and roll back and her breath would catch in her throat as her head tilted back.

_ And she has really beautiful hands. _

The kind of hands that would do really great if they were gripping sheets. I thought about how they’d look if she had fistfuls of my white satin sheets between them as her body was raising up off the bed. Her fingernails were short, and I thought about how they wouldn’t hurt if she decided to dig them into me. It might actually feel good.

_ She needs a better shirt. _

One that’s a v-neck instead of that awful crew cut. If the neckline would plunge just a little bit, she’d show just a little bit of cleavage and it would be —

“Can you tell me that?” she asked, and I thought she was getting annoyed with me because her voice went up a pitch or two.

“Tell you what? I wasn’t listening again.”

“I said I was reading through your file last night, just to try and see where your head’s at. And it says that you committed multiple assaults… some including castration. And I was wondering if you could tell me about that?”

“Well what do you want to know?”

“Why… _ that?” _

I had to swallow down a laugh and fight a smile off my face. _ She’s so cute. _She won’t even say it again, like castration is a dirty word. Her cheeks are red and she is embarrassed having said it that first time already. 

“Why what, Eve? Say it.”

“You know…,” she mumbled and looked away. “Castration.”

I couldn’t hide my smile anymore. It was all across my face and it was very true. “I like it when you say that,” I said. “Are you married, Eve?” That came out of me like word vomit but if I want to know, all I can do is ask.

“I —“ she started, then stopped. “This isn’t about me anymore. This is about you. I think I’ve told you all you needed to know about me.”

“No, you haven’t.”

She leaned back in her chair and tilted her head to the side as if she wanted to tell me that I was absolutely ridiculous. I could feel that she was annoyed with me, but also slightly angry. My smile faded away and I sat up a little straighter. I knew she was waiting for me to answer her question, but I didn’t want to. I knew everything I needed to know about myself. I wanted to know about her now.

If she was married, was she happy? If she wasn’t, would she like me? Did she like her career? If not, what did she wish she was doing? Did she have a family? Or was she alone like me? Did she know Konstantin? If so, how much did he tell her about me? Was she afraid of me? If so, good. If not, what did I have to do to make that true?

I looked at the tape recorder that was still going, then looked at her hands again. They were tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear for the millionth time. Then, after she was done, she slowly brought her hands down. And her eyes traced mine.

“Does this bother you?” she asked, pointing to the recorder. “Is this why you won’t…?”

I raised my eyebrows at her, then she stopped the recording. And I don’t think this was what she wanted to hear, but finally, I said:

“I needed a fancy way of killing him, so I chopped his dick off.”


	4. Something About This You Find Funny, Villanelle?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a little explicit language in this chapter, and a pretty steamy situation, so reader discretion is advised. :)

* * *

* * *

There are a million things I could have and probably should have been thinking about.

Like if Konstantin was going to get me out of there or if he planned on just keeping me there, if maybe I should have been trying to get out of it myself instead of skulking around my pod, if I was ever going to get out of there, if I was ever going to show them that I really didn’t do it, or if I was ever going to have a decent shower again. I mean really, my hair needed a deep condition, and I would’ve paid anybody for soap that didn’t smell like a baby’s bare ass.

The list went on, it really did. I should’ve been thinking about any number of those issues I discussed above.

But instead, what I really thought about as I lay there freezing on the sheet of metal those imbeciles called a bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was in in my brain now. She nestled herself and made a cozy home; took up permanent residence in my head. And I just wondered if maybe she was at home thinking of me too.

The guards called lights out a little bit ago, so I’d been laying there in the darkness for quite a bit, just looking up at the ceiling tiles that I could barely make out. My legs were bent at the knee, my hands were folded on my stomach, and my thumbs messed with the elastic on the waistband of my pants. I’d decided to play a game with myself until I fell asleep.

Was she a hair-puller or sheet-grabber? _ Sheet grabber. _

Was she a toe-curler or lip-biter? _ Lip biter. _

Screamer or heavy breather? _ Screamer. _

Dominant or submissive? _ Dominant. But with me, she’d be submissive. I’d make sure of that. _

Ever been with a woman? _ Maybe. Maybe I’d be her first. _

Moaner or swearer? _ Both, maybe. _

Silent or talker? _ Silent. But I like to imagine her talking. _

Is she a name-caller? _ I don’t know, but she’d call my name. _..

My eyes started to feel heavy the more questions I asked myself about her, so I put my legs down and turned my brain off. Then, I rolled onto my side and reached over the side of my bed to grab a pair of socks I took off a couple hours ago. When I took it earlier, I had promised myself I would only use this if I absolutely needed it because I’m not sure how long the batteries will last and I want to save them, but I can’t help it. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since my session with her ended.

So I unroll the socks and catch it before it falls onto the floor and breaks or makes any noise. And I roll back onto my back, put it up by my head, and press play.

** _“I needed a fancy way of killing him, so I chopped his dick off.”_ **

** _“So… you castr—“_ **

** _“—chopped his dick off.”_ **

** _“You… chopped his dick off because… you just needed a fancy way of killing him? Is… is that right?”_ **

The smile that breaks my mouth is honest and true as her voice fills the cinder block walls. Her voice is just as soft and confused as I remember it being a few hours ago. The only thought in my head was that, _ surely by now she is home and probably has just gotten out of a shower. She has rubbed lotion all over her body to keep her beautiful skin, and put on a pair of pajamas… _

** _“I did that when I was a teen. Still in secondary school.”_ **

** _“You were a high schooler when you did that to him?”_ **

** _“What can I say? I was a bit theatrical back then.”_ **

** _“Something about this that you find funny?”_ **

**A pause. Silence from me.**

My thumbs continued to play with my waistband, but they had a mind of their own. One hand held my pants open, just enough for the other one to slip down inside them.

_ And she’s running a brush through that beautiful hair of hers. It’s wet because she just washed it, but it’s already starting to curl back up. It’s dripping down her back now…. drip, drop. Drip, drop. _

I closed my eyes, took my knees apart. Slid into the poor excuse for cotton panties they supplied us with. I felt extra hot between my thighs, but the sticky wet lining turned me on more.

** _“Something about this you find funny, Villanelle?”_ **

Something about her saying my name made me work myself faster. Wider, more vigorous circles. My breaths picked up, hitched in my throat. Toes curled under. I would’ve died a thousand deaths and walked through the deepest trenches just to hear her say my name like that again. Sure, I could have pressed the rewind button, but I couldn’t take my hand away. I couldn’t stop. Not when I was that close...

_ When she’s done brushing her hair, she’ll settle in to do her work from home. And she’ll look into her briefcase and find that her tape recorder isn’t there and she’ll think of me. _

_ My god, she’ll think of me… _

And with that, all the heat rushed to the center of my body and I pursed my lips together. I wasn’t sure if the guards were outside listening and not that I cared if they were, but I just didn’t want them to hear me climax like that. They could take the recorder away if they came in to investigate.

I breathed and breathed and breathed until I felt myself returning back to normal, then used my clean hand to shut the recording off.

And then I wiped my other hand on the fabric of my pants because I was too tired to get up and give them a proper wash. I rolled over onto my side again, this time to get comfortable.

And the deep cut on my upper forearm started to ache before I fell asleep...

* * *

I always have liked the way the air smells after it has rained.

I walked down the still damp sidewalk with my purse tucked under my armpit and my heels made that satisfying _ clack clack clack clack clack _with every step I took. At first when I started walking home, I made that noise not on purpose, I just couldn’t help it. But after walking like two blocks, I noticed that people would look at me just to see where that sound was coming from, so I started doing it on purpose. Not to sound all self-aggrandizing but the outfit was killer and people deserved to see it.

I thought people deserved to see it so much that I stood outside my flat and acted like I was lost for 45 seconds.

I bought it because I didn’t own anything taupe colored, and I thought the bodysuit would make me look powerful and intimidating. The neckline was v-shaped and plunged so deeply that if I made a wrong move, my tits would fly out but that was all part of the fun. The spaghetti-straps didn’t offer much support, but the best part was the long straight legs of the pants. I wore heels with it so my legs would look longer, and took the time to flatten my hair with the straightening iron. I really don’t know why I wanted to look so good today, I just did.

_ Maybe because you wanted to look like someone worth their time… _, I thought. But I pushed that thought out of my head quickly because it was a weak thought and I am not weak. I will never be weak. And I will never think about that place ever again. Not until it’s time for me to know.

After standing outside my flat, I held onto the railing and climbed the spiral staircase to lead up to the door. Nobody was in the hallway to see me and I liked that because even though I wanted the people outside to see my outfit, I didn’t want the people inside my building to see me. My neighbors are nosy and would have asked questions.

I grabbed the key to my flat from my purse, but when I went to push it into the lock, my door creaked open already…

I wasn’t scared, not even a bit. I just touched the tip of my key to see how sharp it was, and I have to admit that I panicked for five seconds when I realized that it wasn’t sharp enough to hurt a baby let alone a person coming to hurt me. So I improvised.

I kicked off my shoes and smashed them both against the wall. It hurt my heart to break my favorite pair of Stilettos, but I felt good when they broke easily and came to a sharp point. I chose the sharper point of the two, then tucked it behind my ear for safe keeping, making sure I hid it with my hair.

My door creaked even louder when I pushed it open, and I walked in on the tips of my toes to be as quiet as possible.

I heard someone in my kitchen. It sounded like pots and pans banging together, like someone was looking for something. So I stopped breathing because I clearly they hadn’t heard me come in otherwise they’d stop rummaging at once. I didn’t want them to know I was inside. I needed the advantage. That’s rule number one they teach you in training: always look for the advantage that you can use over your opponent.

I could hear my heart beating in my own two ears as I inched closer and closer…

I brought my hand up to my ear, just in case I needed to grab my makeshift shank quickly…

And I rounded the corner into my kitchen, and I —

“You’re late,” he said so loud that I almost felt like screaming, but I kept it under control. I calmed down. I was actually glad to see him just a bit.

“Late? For what?” I sat down on my couch and tried to steady my voice so he didn’t know that he had actually scared me. I still wanted an advantage over him and he could not know that I wasn’t expecting him. That’s rule number two they teach you: always stay one step ahead of your opponent. I took the shank from behind my ear and tossed it on the floor. “You know I could have killed you for being in my flat and not have gone to jail.”

“Where have you been all morning? You said meet for lunch and here I am, meeting for lunch and you weren’t here,” he put a plate of bacon in front of me and sat down in a chair. “Where were you?”

I wanted the bacon, I really did. It smelled great and I’m sure it tasted even better. But I couldn’t move my hand. Before he sat down, I made sure I covered it… and I hoped he couldn’t see any blood dripping down my arm because I clamped my hand down over it so fast so he wouldn’t see it that I was sure I broke it back open.

“Out,” I shrugged and try to seem natural. But the cut on my arm was really hurting. 

“Out where?”

“You know, here and there. Running errands. Normal stuff,” I opened my mouth and hoped he would get the picture. And he did. He stuffed a piece in my mouth. “I didn’t think you would actually come, Konstantin. You never do.”

“Well,” he grinned and reached into his pocket. “I have an assignment for you.” He held an envelope out to me, and I just stared at it. For the first time, I didn’t want to take it. I didn’t want to look inside of it and I didn’t care to even hold it. For the first time — and don’t you ever repeat this, I swear to God I will deny it if you do — the envelope kind of… scared me. “Go on,” Konstantin said. “Take it.”

“I’m not in the mood,” I laid down on my couch and grabbed another piece of bacon, mindful to lay on the side where my cut was so I could hide it. “Why don’t we watch a movie instead?”

“Villanelle. This is good news! Your suspension is up! You have an assignment! The first one in two weeks! You should be happy!”

“I kind of like suspension, though. Like a vacation, but better.”

“Look, I understand. I get it, I get it. It must be scary for you to —“

“Scary? I don’t get scared, I —“

“You must be. Killing the prince of Russia was no easy feat and you had a lot of people looking for you, but that’s over. That’s done, okay? You laid low for two weeks, everything has settled down and you are safe now. Got it?” He was using his gentle voice with me, but I didn’t really care. “Now here. Take your assignment.”

I stuck my tongue out and blew a raspberry at him.

“Villanelle?” He called my name but I just closed my eyes and pretended like I was going to take a nap… all while reaching for another piece of bacon. “You are acting so strange lately.”

“You are acting so strange lately,” I said in my best impersonation of his voice.

“Where were you this morning?”

“Funny how I don’t want to kill somebody and you call me acting funny for it.”

“Why are you acting like this? Did I just hear you say you don’t _ want _to kill?”

“Do you need a hearing aid?”

He put the envelope down on the coffee table and sat back to stroke his beard. I pushed the plate of bacon away because suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore. I just didn’t have the appetite. And plus, my arm was really fucking hurting. 

“...Is this about the Nadia thing?”

I sat right up like someone lit a fire under my ass or something. And I looked straight at him because it felt like he just slapped me in the face or something. I didn’t care that he could see the blood coming from my cut, I didn’t care that I was getting blood on my couch because it was all seeping through the bandage I dressed it in. I just looked him right in the eye and felt like maybe, if I really needed to, I could kill him in that moment. I hated him that much.

“Don’t you ever mention that ever again. EVER. I… I will _ kill you _ if you do.” I stood up and walked to my bedroom, mostly to clean off my arm and put a new bandage on it, but also mostly because I wanted to dress in something more comfortable and lie down.

“The Prime Minister of England was murdered this morning,” he called from the living room and only half paid attention. “You or that cut on your arm wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, anybody think that the tape recorder that Villanelle stole was a vibrator at first or did I miss the mark completely with that little bit of misdirection? I tried to make you guys think it was a vibrator before you realized it was the tape recorder she stole from Eve, but I might have fallen a bit flat, haha. Just let me know if you got it or not!? :)


	5. You Don’t Think You Need To Tell Niko?

* * *

* * *

I was right, by the way.

I pulled open the heavy metal door and wiped my feet on the carpet mat just inside because at some point between me leaving home and driving the fifteen minutes to get here, it decided it wanted to rain.

Normally, I would have been really annoyed at the fact that it rained when the forecast said it wasn’t supposed to, because I had worn cloth sneakers instead of leather boots, but that day was a special day and I really don’t think anything — not even the imprecision of Mother Nature — could have fully annoyed me. Not that day.

I fished my identification card from my trench coat pocket and laid it against the scanner. When it beeped, I pushed the next set of double doors open and tried to remind myself to act casual as I walked down the hallway. To anyone who didn’t really know me, I suppose I looked normal. You know, typical Eve, dressed in black cigarette pants, a white button up shirt made of material so sheer you can see her bra underneath, and her messy mop pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. The shuffling with a million file folders and a half-drunken thermos of coffee was a nice touch. I looked completely normal. Nobody could see that I was beaming on the inside after watching the news with Niko before I left the house. And nobody could see me bubbling with excitement after listening to the latest updates on the radio on my way there.

I didn’t even get annoyed when my elbow bumped the doorframe on my way to my desk and caused me to drop a small splash of coffee on my fresh white shirt. Nothing could have brought me down.

Because I was right.

One of the things you’ll learn pretty quickly about me is that I am always right. It’s one of the things Niko took about a solid year into our relationship to fully grasp and I think he’ll agree when I say that once he accepted that I am always right, his life got easier. I am always right. Always.

So when I finally put the files and my thermos on my desk and turned on my light, I wasn’t surprised to see three men in uniform through the window that looked straight into Carolyn’s office. They sat with their backs turned to me and Carolyn was the only face I could clearly see. Her eyebrows were low and she wore a stern, concerned expression. I narrowed my eyes and tried to read her lips. I couldn’t tell what they were talking about in there, but it seemed rather serious. The two additional men dressed in all black standing on either side of the door stood completely still, stone-faced. I started to wonder if they were playing a game of Human Statue.

But even more than that, I wondered exactly what was going on in there. I wondered if Carolyn was asking all the right questions…

_ Who was the Prime Minister with this time last week? Get interviews from them, start to learn about any patterns in his behavior. _

_ Pull the floorboards up. I know the entire place was wiped clean, but if there were hardwood floors in the observatory where he was killed, chances are a few drops seeped into the wood. _

_ Are we pulling CCTV of anyone who went in and out of the observatory for last week? It’s possible the murder was set up in advance and he fell into a trap. _

_ And the autopsy report is being mailed directly to us, right? When is that going to be concluded? No more than two days, I hope. _

_ And also, we need to talk to — _

“Good morning, sunshine. You look especially awful today,” he said as he tossed a brown paper bag across the desk at me and sat down in a chair next to my plant. “I mean that in the nicest way possible.”

“Oh piss off!” I said that with a little too much spunk in my voice to be entirely joking but luckily for me, Bill doesn’t take things like that to heart. I can usually handle his sarcastic and smartass remarks, but the way he interrupted my thoughts made me crazy. And angry. I took a couple seconds to cool down before asking, “what’s in the bag?”

“You look like you could use it a little more than me, so,” he picked up my coffee and shrugged as he took a sip. “You’re welcome, by the way.” 

“Eh, don’t judge,” I mumble and unpack the bag. I’m more grateful than he knows to see the cinnamon scones, but I don’t want him to know that. “I didn’t have time to eat before I left the house this morning.”

“But you did, I assume, have time to watch the news. Didn’t you?”

He motioned with his head toward Carolyn’s office, and the both of us snuck a quick peek. Carolyn and the men still held each other’s gazes, deep in their conversation. It was at that moment I decided that I would give a kidney just to be in on the conversation.

“It’s strange, don’t you think?” I mumbled with a mouth full of scone. “The Prime Minister is a man that nobody left alone for more than five minutes at a time. And somehow —“

“Are you saying you think it was an inside job?”

“I’m saying no CCTV, no eyewitnesses… whoever killed him moves quickly. And in silence.”

“And must have inside knowledge on the observatory to know where the CCTV blindspots are.”

“Exactly.”

I leaned back in my swivel chair and played with the new bite of scone I took. I smushed it with my tongue, then sucked on it until it was flat. Moved it from my left cheek, my right, then back to my left again. Then pushed it to the back of my mouth, then swallowed.  _ Unless,  _ I thought.  _ Whoever killed him had access to him before he entered the observatory. And were so much a part of his everyday entourage that nobody thought it was out of the ordinary. It must have been an inside job. _

“You don’t think —“

“—You talk to Niko?”

The both of us began to talk at the same time, but I decided to drop my thread and follow his because Bill always had a way of thinking that I get way in over my head with things like this when I start going off about all these different theories and conclusions. He thinks I’m trying to “play detective” when I do that and quite frankly, I’m not in the mood to hear his shit today, so I just dropped it. I knew that I would do some more thinking later, when I was on my own. Sometimes I really do think that I, myself, am the best company to keep. I’m the only one smart enough to handle me.

“About what? Talk to Niko about what?”

“You know, the last week thing.”

“Oh! Oh, no, no. Nah. We’re past it. It’s fine.”

Not that it’s of any importance whatsoever, but he’s referring to last weekend when Niko came home at three in the morning. He smelled like booze and didn’t even make it to the bed. I found him by the couch, passed out with his pants around his ankles and his underwear completely soaked with piss. It doesn’t bring me any joy to say this, but I didn’t bring it up to Bill last week because I actually cared. In fact, I had forgotten about it by the next morning and only remembered when Niko complained about having a huge hangover. I only told Bill because we were bored going through files, and I needed something to talk to him about. I got really sick of hearing about his daughter’s new tooth, so I brought up Niko’s misfortunes instead.

“You know Eve,” he started, dusting off the last few sips of my coffee. “It’s okay to admit that things are…”

“Things are what?”

“I mean if Niko’s having an affair —“

“Let me stop you right there. Niko is not having an… affair,” I swallow a laugh when I say that because it doesn’t even sound right coming out of my mouth. It sounds every bit of hilarious as it feels to say it. “Although at this point, I kinda wish he would.”

“You don’t think you need to tell Niko?”

“Tell him what? That I wish he’d go bang a hot young teacher that he works with just so I don’t feel like I’m an inadequate wife anymore? Or that I wish he’d just go adopt an Asian orphan named Eleanor so I can stop feeling like a failure for not having kids yet? Which one should I tell him first? I’m leaning more towards the gut-wrenching blow of ‘you and your penis don’t do it for me anymore and I’d rather not sleep with you’, but a good dose of soul-crushing ‘I don’t want the family you always wanted’ sounds pretty good too.”

“I… guess I’d go with the latter?”

“The question was rhetorical, jackass,” I stand up and stretch my legs out for a second before grabbing a random stack of my files. “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find out what the hell they’re talking about in there.”   
  


* * *

I am also determined.

Niko would say that it’s one of my best qualities, but I’m not so sure how realistic his assessments are, because he says everything is “one of my best qualities.” In this case, however, I think maybe he might be right. I am determined and as soon as I set my mind on something, I make it happen. You should also never underestimate my ability to do that.

So let it come as no surprise to you when I say that my day ended at 6:30 at night. I was home, freshly showered with a towel still wrapped around my damp hair. I wore a loose nightgown and a pair of socks, and sat in the computer room with my legs tucked under myself. And my jaw hung open a little as I pressed the power button on my laptop, and waited for it to boot up.

I don’t think Bill believed me when I told him that I was going to find out what Carolyn and the police were talking about in that office. I think he made the mistake of underestimating me and what I am capable of, and really wrote me off.

I didn’t go into the office and demand they tell me. Hell, I didn’t really go into the office at all. I just took my files and went into the editing room and pretended to be really busy with making copies of them. What Bill didn’t know that I did know is that when you go into the editing room, there is a small vent in the corner next to the main computer tower. If you open that vent, you can hear everything inside of Carolyn’s office.

I’m not sure if what I did next is illegal or not, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s like something came over me. When I heard the officers telling Carolyn that they would email the photos of the crime scene to her, I just felt something deep in the depths of my soul telling me that I too needed to get ahold of those photos. So when Carolyn took her lunch break, I took the bobby pin from my hair and picked the lock. To anyone who passed, I looked like I was just going through and cleaning up the office for her.

But I really emailed them to myself, and destroyed the evidence of it.

Looking back, I think now I can say that the feeling I felt that told me to get the crime scene pictures was fate telling me that I accepted the plea to put its plans in motion. I was on the fast track to meeting Villanelle, on the fast track to completely derailing my life, and I ignored all the warning signs. There were several of them, all of which you’ll see as I continue to tell you my side of this story. But I ignored every single one of them.

That’s the problem when you get involved with someone like her. Someone like  _ Villanelle, _ I mean. Sorry, I still have trouble speaking her name. She makes you feel so… alive, so in the moment. And you’re stuck thinking,  _ “how the hell can this be wrong if it feels so right?” _

I double-clicked on the .zip file in the email and clicked “extract files” from the compressed folder. They loaded, and took their sweet time loading, too. I watched with palpitating anticipation as all thirty-two photos uploaded to my computer. And right when number twenty-nine was almost done…?

“Baby,” Niko’s voice came from behind me and I exited the browser with lighting-quick speed. I whipped around in my chair and raised my eyebrows to let him know I was listening. “Are you still coming?”

And you can probably imagine my annoyance when I realized I forgot all about the stupid open house at his job tonight.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for those of you who have actually never read my fanfiction before, you’re unfamiliar with the fact that I like to be super interactive with my readers and really try to tailor the stories to the things they like. With that being said, another quick question! :)
> 
> Now that you’ve had time to read both, do you guys like reading from Eve’s POV or Villanelle’s POV more? Let me know, and I’ll try to structure the chapters more towards what you guys would like to see. The story’s still going to be told through both points of view because it’s an important theme for the story to be kind of conflicting when you read the events from Eve’s perspective vs. Villanelle’s. But I will try to do more of one POV vs. the other’s if you guys are more partial to one. :)


	6. ...need to calm down...being too loud...

* * *

* * *

It wasn’t that the open house was boring, it was that I had no idea what I was meant to be doing.

I didn’t know if it was my place to just smile and stand beside Niko while I looked proud of him, or if I was meant to wave and greet everyone the same way he did. I had no idea what my place was there or what my purpose was, and all I could think about was how I should have and could have been at home reading the files about the murder.

Less than halfway through the open house, I found myself watching the clock and counting down the seconds until it was over, and a part of me felt really bad for doing that because Niko seemed so excited that I was there. I wore a skin-tight black dress and a pair of dark red high heels that he bought me two Christmases ago. I didn’t feel like dealing with my hair and having my neck sweating all night, so I pinned it up with a butterfly clip. Niko matched me perfectly in his dapper black button down and dark red pants. I know to everyone there, we looked like the perfect power couple, and that made me nauseous.

It’s absolutely maddening how deceiving looks can be, and it drove me insane to think that to those people, I was smiling and waving with my arm wrapped around my husband’s back. I looked to be the essence of a happy wife, but nobody could tell that I was screaming on the inside.

“Darling, this is Ian,” Niko grinned as he introduced me to some man who looked exactly the same as the last man he introduced me to. “He teaches maths as well and he and I have lunch together at times.”

“A pleasure,” I smiled and shook Ian’s sweaty palm. It grossed me out so much that I discreetly wiped it on the seat of my dress, but I kept that smile plastered to my face. Lips tight, teeth bared. Happy, happy, happy. “Sweetheart, will you excuse me? I have to use the loo.”

I ducked off before Niko had a chance to say anything else. It’s shameful to admit, but in the several years that he and I had been married, I had never once been to the school he taught at. I had no idea where I was going or where a toilet might possibly be, so it was a good thing I didn’t actually have to go. I probably should have stuck around long enough for him to give me directions on how to get to the nearest bathroom, but I physically couldn’t.

I wandered through the hallways, listening to my heels clink against the cold linoleum floors. Bright artworks hung all in the hallways and it smelled like erasers and composition notebooks. The classrooms were locked up for the night and there were only very few lights on. To normal people, it probably would have been creepy to see a school that is supposed to be filled and bustling with students all hours of the day to be barren like that, like it was a ghost town. 

But I am not a normal person, so it’s unsurprising that I found comfort in the quiet.

As I walked down the hallway, I ran my fingers along the lockers that lined it, and mouthed the little bit of lyrics I picked up from the stupid bubblegum pop song that was playing in the cafeteria I just left from. I knew my anger towards Niko was irrational because this particular instance was not his fault, but I couldn’t help feeling a little bit of annoyance at the fact that the song was stuck in my head now and I’d probably never be able to get it out. I couldn’t help thinking,  _ if I never came here, this stupid song that I don’t even really know the lyrics to wouldn’t be in my head now. _

Finally, at the end of the hallway and right next to a janitor’s closet, I found the ladies’ room and wandered in. Thankfully, I was alone.

I put my hands against the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. With slight bags under my eyes, I began to wonder just how in the hell this became my life, and how in the hell I was so content with it once upon a time.

I remember a time when this life with Niko sounded like a dream to me.

When I first met him, it was just like they say it is in movies and novels. He came into my life when I was least expecting it, a twenty-seven-year-old kid fresh out of graduate school and full of wide-eyed curiosity. I told myself that I would refrain from dating all throughout school so I could focus on my education first and foremost, and that’s exactly what I did. Graduate school was over and I was still on the fence about medical school at the time, and I was only supposed to run into the Tesco for milk, bread and eggs, because the weather was calling for a storm that weekend. And just like we ripped a page straight out of one of Nicholas Sparks’ more elaborate wet dreams, I bumped into him in the toilet paper aisle and all my groceries went tumbling to the ground because I was too stubborn to get one of those baskets to carry my things in. He looked at me, apologized profusely, and right then I felt like maybe it was the start of the rest of my life.

We were together for nearly six years before he proposed. It was right on the day I graduated from medical school, and he took me to the restaurant we had our first date at to celebrate. When the waiter brought us our champagne, I noticed a sparkly ring sunken at the bottom of mine and cried as I continued to say “of course, yes!” It’s so sweet it’ll give you a cavity, but it’s true. That’s the story of how I went from Eve Park to Eve Polastri.

Back then, things seemed more simple. Because that was back before there were two of me.

There are two Eves and I think that maybe if I sat down and really dug deep enough, I could find the other Eve somewhere. The Eve who wanted nothing more than to come home after long days of work and curl up next to her husband, or the Eve who didn’t shudder at the mere thought of getting pregnant and having children. The Eve who would never be caught dead staring at herself in the mirror of a public school bathroom, willing herself to hold back tears of frustration because she just can’t take any more of her usual, humdrum life. I know she’s still there somewhere. 

But what if the two Eves can’t coexist, and the old Eve can never come back out?

I stuck my hands under the motion sensor to get the water to come out, then cupped them underneath the stream so they’d fill up with enough for me to douse on my face. I grabbed paper towels from the dispenser and patted my face dry. 

_ “Uh-ohhhhh…,” _ I hummed-sang to myself as I tossed the paper towel in the trash.  _ “...need to calm down…. being too loud….” _

And then, I left to walk back up that hallway to go back to that cafeteria so I could plaster that fake smile on my face for another hour…

All while having that stupid song still stuck in my head.

* * *

* * *

“I spy with my tiny eye somethiiiiiiing….”

I looked around the shop for something interesting but something small, something that he wouldn’t get right away. My eyes went to the chairs, to the toilet entrance, to the cashier’s headband, then to the menu.  _ Ah, that’s it _ , I thought. And I settled on a pickle sticking out from underneath the bun in the picture of the hamburger on the menu.

“Green,” I said and shoveled another french fry — which aren’t French, by the way — into my mouth. 

He looked at me as he chewed, long and drawn out. He kind of looked like a cow chewing and hearing him chew made me want to kick him in the neck. He licked some ketchup off his thumb, smacked his lips really annoying and said, “Villanelle.”

“You have three guesses before I give you a hint.”

“You are not taking this seriously,” he shook his head at me.

“Oh come on, you are not even playing correctly! You take all the fun out of everything. Why are you so boring?”

“This is serious,” Konstantin put his hamburger down and sipped on his Diet Coke. “Very serious.”

“Just one guess? Please? It’s a very good one.”

“ _ Villanelle.” _

“Okay, okay. You just don’t want to see me win,” I pulled off a burnt end of my fry and tossed it at him. I tried not to laugh when it hit him in the beard but I couldn’t help it. “It was the pickle on the menu, by the way.”

“You have no idea how much trouble you could be in, do you?” he shook his cup and made the ice inside it fly around before taking another drink. “You have no idea how bad — very bad — this is.”

“Well it would only be bad if I did it, no?”

I was getting really sick and tired of hearing his nonsense about me killing some fat prick in Great Britain. I didn’t even know the details, all I knew was that he was killed by somebody who sliced his throat and left him bleeding out on a nice Persian rug. I was starting to feel like maybe Konstantin didn’t believe me when I told him that I had nothing to do with it, and I was getting offended. I didn’t have any reason to do that, and it was not an assignment. Plus, I’d have moved him off the rug. Blood stains are a bitch to get out and the rug was really fancy.

“Are you going to tell me where you were or no?” he asked.

“Ugh, what does it matter?! I didn’t do it! I was here, in Paris.”

“Did anybody see you while you were here in Paris?”

“Um, yah!”

“Will you tell me who? So I can talk to them? Just to make sure they will say you were with them when this man was killed.”

“Yeaaaaaah no,” I shook my head. “You know what I want now? That milkshake thing with the crushed up Oreo cookies. McDonald’s is shitty every country you go, but at least that is good. Give me the money for it. Right now.”

He stared at my outstretched hand, then smacked it away. “Tell me who you were with, right now.”

“I want my ice cream and you have to pay for it since it was your bright idea to cut off my allowance.”

“Villa—“

“Ice cream.”

“You need to —“

“Ice. Cream.”

“But Vill—“

I stood up from my chair, “I’ll just go —“

“SIT DOWN, VILLANELLE!” he shouted at me really loud and everyone inside the shitty McDonald’s looked at us. He felt embarrassed, I could tell. I did not. But I could see in his eyes that he was holding something back from me and I wanted to know what, so I sat down anyway. And folded my hands and looked him in his eyes. “This is serious,” he started again. “The police are wanting to speak with you. Tomorrow. And I can’t be there when they do. So I need you to tell me  _ everything.  _ ...Including where you got that cut on your arm.”

I looked down at the bandage still wrapped around my arm and remembered that it was there.

Maybe it was a bit serious and maybe I should have been taking it more seriously. But he would never forgive me if I told him why I have the cut on my arm and where I was when that fat prick was killed.

I just needed him to trust that I didn’t do it.

* * *

* * *

_ I think I’ve given him enough of my time by now. _

That was the thought flowing through my head as I watched my phone vibrate in circles as I sat at the table with Niko and a few of his friends and their wives. I guess the open house went well, because before I knew it, I agreed to go out with him and a few of his work buddies for drinks after it. I told myself that it wouldn’t be any more tiring than it already was to plaster that fake smile on my face at the open house, and if things got boring, at least I had alcohol to combat the boredom.

My phone stopped buzzing and I felt the irritation of not answering it bubbling in the pit of my stomach.

I really wanted nothing more than to answer my phone because Elena was calling and I knew it must have been important, but I promised Niko that I would put work on the backburner for the night. I could have easily just picked up the phone and answered it anyway, but I was in no way prepared to fight the argument that would come had I done that.

But it was nearly ten o’clock at night and I thought for sure that I had given him  _ enough  _ of my time for one night.

So the next time my phone started to buzz, I looked over at Niko and then at the group, and I said, “Lemme just take this. She’s not gonna stop calling until I do.” I slipped out of the booth and pressed the phone to my ear as I walked toward the entrance.

“Elena?” I answered.

“It’s about time! You told me to call you if anything new happened, and I was starting to think you were dead, or —“

“Oh by some miraculous turn of fate, I have not died of boredom tonight. Tell me you have something juicy. Tell me they found DNA at the crime scene or somebody else turned up dead. Please, please. Tell me anything.”

“I’m not sure how juicy it is, but I am going to email you the link to the Prime Minister’s mistress’ alibi statement.”

“How good is it?”

“It’s water tight. She has several witnesses and even plane tickets to confirm that she was out of the country.”

“Dammit,” I mumbled. “What else did she say?”

“She shot down the idea that their relationship was illegal. Though the Prime Minister was 45 at the time of their affair, she claims that when they first started seeing each other in 2017, she 18 and well past the age of consent. This is all backed by a wonderfully detailed account of their first date, where they sat at a pub and drank Kiesto wine.”

“Oh god dammit,” I sighed and looked up to the sky. It just kept getting better and better and all I wanted to do was go home and sit in front of my computer. I could crack this thing wide open… I knew it could. All I had to do was get home… “Elena, thanks. You are the best assistant in the world.”

“Well gee, thanks,” she laughed before we hung up. 

I dropped my phone into my pocket and shuffled back inside to the booth we were all sitting at. And when the waitress came back over to ask if we wanted refills on our drinks, I nudged my glass over to her and said, “I’ll have a glass of Kiesto, please.”

She shuffled back behind the counter and when she brought the bottle back, I told her that she could leave it. Niko thought that I was trying to get incredibly drunk and laughed it off, but I didn’t have the heart or the guts to tell him that I wanted to drink what the mistress was drinking when she dated him...

I wanted to immerse myself in her mind, get an understanding of who she is. What better way to do that than to drink what she drank?

Elena’s words kept replaying in my head…

_ “When they first started seeing each other in 2017, she was 18 and they drank Kiesto wine.” _

And I don’t know what it was that told me to do what I did next. Maybe it was instinct or maybe it was curiosity. Whatever it was, I don’t know. But it was probably the same thing that told me to tell a lie so big that I put myself in danger by putting myself right in the crosshairs of Villanelle. That, my friends, is a lie you’ll read all about in the next chapter.

But for this chapter?

_ When they first started seeing each other, she was 18 in 2017...and they drank Kiesto wine. _

That instinct or curiosity told me to turn the bottle of Kiesto over and read the production label…

Only to find out that Kiesto wasn’t first packed and produced until 2018.


	7. Talking About You For An Hour Wouldn’t Be A Waste, Eve

* * *

* * *

The second time I saw her was very different from the first.

It felt like maybe she got inside my head a little and knew what I was thinking of her the first time I sat down and talked with her, because this time she looked different. And I’m not sure if it’s a good different.

Her almond eyes seemed bigger, maybe more defined. But when I studied her a little more to figure out why, I realized the thick black eyeliner underneath her lids was the cause. I wanted to take my fingers and wipe it off because I did not like how she looked with it.

And her hair wasn’t pinned back either. It was down and hanging over both her shoulders, curly, unkempt and unruly like some kind of lion’s mane. I guess it didn’t look terrible, but it made me wonder why she had decided to do that. To wear eyeliner and take her hair down, I mean.

“S’that tea?” I asked her as soon as I sat down in that same cold metal chair. The guard had told me before I came in here that I’d be gone talking to her for an entire hour this time instead of half of one. _ Thank God my arse is fat, _ I thought. _ Because sitting in this chair with no padding for an hour would really be shitty. _

She looked up from taking everything out of her briefcase for a moment, like maybe she forgot that she set the green and black thermos down in front of her in the first place. She looked at it, then at me, then said, “uh, no,” before clearing her throat. “It’s coffee.”

“I love coffee,” I replied and started tapping my fingernails against the table.

She ignored me, which I found rude. I started to reach across the table and take her cup on my own, but every time I wanted to move my arm to do it, I couldn’t. I decided I must not have wanted it that badly. She ignored me, then scribbled the date in the margin of her notebook, then folded her hands. Waiting. But I’m not sure for what.

I didn’t know when the next time I’d see Konstantin would be. He hadn’t come to see me just yet, but it had only been two days and I’m sure there were rules about me having visitors that I just had no idea about. But the next time I saw him, I was going to thank him. I made a mental note to do it and I wouldn’t forget. I wanted to thank him for sending Eve to me because he must have known I would be really really bored in here. And plus it was nice that he worried about me and my sanity so much to get me a doctor.

I could feel Eve looking at me. I could see it too — the way her eyes glossed over me from head to torso until I was cut off by the table. But I could feel it, mostly. It was like her eyes were hands that touched each part of my body as they fell on them.

She looked at my hair first, how it was kept tame only by a dirty bandana. Then she stopped at my neck, and I could tell that she noticed the two fiery red welts on it, just below my ear on the right side. Her eyebrows twisted and I could tell she was about to ask how I got them, but I’m always one step ahead of her so I spit something out before she could.

“You’re going to write today? No tape recording?”

“I seem to have… misplaced my recorder,” she cleared her throat again and sat up straighter. “How did you —“

“Are you married?”

Her mouth hung open a little and I could see that her teeth were very white. “Excuse me?”

“Are you married, Eve?” I hate that I have to ask. If I wasn’t stuck in this shit hole and I had access to the internet, I would have known that by now. Oh, I had access to the internet, I’d know everything about Dr. Eve Polastri by now. 

“I am, yes,” she nodded. “But that’s not —“

“To a man or woman?”

“Oksana, I —“

_ “Villanelle, _ I told you. _ ” _

“Right, Villanelle.”

“What?”

“We’re not going to waste this hour talking about me.”

* * *

She made it seem so effortless, and I began to wonder if I was ever going to figure her out.

The way she switched topics at the drop of a hat and directed the conversation made me feel like my head was spinning. She was utterly in control of everything — in control of _ me _, and I was grasping at straws trying to assert some kind of dominance over her. But she was like a wild caught fish that I just had no idea how to reel in.

Maybe I wasn’t powerful enough to do it.

“We’re not going to waste this hour talking about me,” I said and I tried my damnedest to make my voice firm and authoritative. She looked at me with childlike wonder behind her devilish eyes and her thin, perfectly pink lips stretched into a smile.

“Talking about you for an hour wouldn’t be a waste, Eve.” She said my name again and each time she did, she said it like she knew it held some weight to it. Like she knew every time she said that one syllable and three letters in her velvety Russian accent, it made my brain turn to mush and my blood ten times hotter.

“Where did you get those marks on your neck?” I asked, motioning to her right side. “There’s two of them. Just below your ear.”

“You’re observant,” she sounded amused. “I like it.”

“Where did you get them?”

“I must have scratched myself or something.”

“Must’ve been a pretty hard scratch.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she shrugged.

“Do you do that a lot?”

“Do what? Scratch an itch?”

“No. Scratch yourself that hard.”

“I guess, I don’t know.”

“Is that something you do?” I push her a little harder and maybe it’s not the most professional way to handle things, but it seems like that might be the only way I get anything out of her. She likes to be in control. She likes for everything to be at a pace that she sets. But she also likes to drive two-hundred miles an hour without a seatbelt. I am merely keeping up. 

“Is what something I do?” she keeps her tone low, steady. She is not giving up control without a fight.

“Hurting yourself.”

“Hurting myself how?”

“You know how.”

She narrows her eyes at me and I can see her jaw tighten. I do my best to keep myself level. I can’t let her see me falter. Not even a little.

“Why are you here?” her voice has a tinge of anger in it now. Irritation? No. Frustration. Because she knows that I’m the one calling the shots.

“You know why I’m here.”

“Actually, I don’t,” her eyebrows raise one by one and this is when I decided that she was easily the most expressive person I had ever met. I just couldn’t tell which expressions were genuine and which were not. “Konstantin wouldn’t tell me.”

“Who is Konstantin?”

“You mean he didn’t send you?” her voice sounded different than I’d ever heard it. Like something inside of her deflated. “He didn’t send you here to see me?”

“I’m here because it’s my job. Nobody sent me.”

She folded her arms across her stomach and looked off in the corner. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn that she was going to cry. But I did know better and I knew that I was dealing with someone who wasn’t capable of feeling an emotion strong enough to bring her to tears. And I also knew that I was dealing with a person who would never give up enough control to let me see her cry either way.

“Villanelle. Who is Konstantin?”

“He’s… he’s nobody,” she shook her head. “Forget about it and tell me why you’re here. Why you’re _ really _ here.”

“Tell me who Konstantin is first,” I clicked my pen open and settled in to write. “Is he a friend? Family?”

“He’s my neighbor. Now tell me why you’re here.”

I decided not to push it. At least I knew who he was, though it was a very shitty explanation. I needed her to trust me. I needed her to know that I would keep my word. So despite the fact that just a “neighbor” is not the explanation I was looking for, she DID tell me who he was and I DID make a deal that I would tell her why I was there.

“I’m here because it is my job to evaluate you and diagnose you and possibly treat you for whatever… mental illness you have,” I replied. I know I said I was going to keep up my end of the bargain, and I did. But my plan was to match her in the less-than-satisfying answer department. I knew that basic explanation was not what she was asking for. But hey, “neighbor” wasn’t the answer I was asking for either.

“Bullshit,” she finally made eye contact with me again. And I know that sometimes our brains want to see something so bad that we imagine it is really there, but I swear to the God I’m not sure I believe in, I think I saw tears in her eyes when she looked at me. “Be honest with me, Eve.”

“You be honest with me.”

“I will be. If you are.”

“...Deal?” I don’t know what came over me. Because when I first took on this case and I read her case file and saw that she has an extremely violent history, I swore to myself that I would keep my distance from her and keep this very professional. Because people like her are unpredictable. And being in this room with her every day is a risk.

But something came over me.

Because I extended my arm across the table and offered her my hand.

And she looked at my hand for a few seconds like she was trying to figure it out.

* * *

Her hand looked soft and clean.

I wanted to shake it, I did. But after hearing how Konstantin didn’t really actually send her to me… I didn’t know if I should trust her or not.

And I was really starting to wonder how the fuck I got here.

**~ ~ ~ **

_ “Where were you the morning of the 30th of August, the year 2018. Between the hours of eight thirty and ten thirty?” The fat one puts his hands in his pockets and paces back and forth in front of me. I am so sick and tired to death of answering questions. _

_ “If I tell you will you shut up and get out of my flat?” _

_ He looks over at his partner, a thin wiry girl with bright red hair and freckles all over and really horrendous teeth. I think it looks like someone farted freckles all over her face. She is ugly and really unpleasant to look at. She is walking around my flat like she is looking for something. _

_ “Yeah yeah, sure,” she answers for her fat partner. “Just tell us where you were and if there’s anyone who can corroborate your story.” _

_ I sit and fix my robe. I need to throw it into the wash because I got sausage grease all over it and in fact, I was on my to throw it in the wash when they showed up. I was just walking around in my bra so I had to hurry up and put it on when they came knocking. _

_ “I was here in Paris, not in Britain. I went to a doctor down the street that morning to get —“ I stop talking when the door to my flat opens. My eyes go immediately to the handgun I have stashed inside of my bookcase. But I automatically settle down when I see that it’s just Konstantin. _

_ “I’m sorry sir, you can’t be in here. This is official —“ the fat one starts. _

_ “It’s fine, it’s fine. I want him here,” I scoot over and give him a place on my couch to sit. _

_ “Okay,” freckle face tries her attempt at redirecting me. “You can continue. You were saying? You went to a doctor that morning because…?” _

_ I see Konstantin from the corner of my eye and nervous is all over me. Or at least I think that’s what nervous feels like. I read in a book two days ago that nervous feels like when you really don’t want to do something but you’re about to do it anyway. And nervous feels like sweat rolling down your body but not from working out or running fast. Nervous makes your hands sweat and your body shake. Maybe nervous feels like when Konstantin is about to know something I really don’t want him to know. _

_ “...I’m sorry, what are we talking about again? I seem to have forgotten,” I tuck my hair behind my ear and make sure my newfound British accent is very polished. Freckle face and fat ass seem confused and I want to laugh. “I haven’t been to a doctor in years, I suppose.” _

_ “Miss… Astankova?” Fat ass tilts his head. “Are you…?” _

_ “I’m sorry, but you must go,” I stand up and usher them out the door. Quick quick quick, before Konstantin thinks anything of them mentioning I said something about a doctor. _

_ When I get them out of my flat, I lock the door and ignore their confused questions and that’s when I feel sweat rolling down my back and my leg is shaking. Nervous is definitely all over me. I am feeling something… actually feeling. _

_ And I fucking hate it. _

_ “So…,” Konstantin starts. “A doctor is it?” _

_ “You know,” I take my robe off again and throw it on the floor with my other dirty duds. “I had to lie. They asked me for an alibi so I made something up.” _

_ “Perhaps you can tell them the truth? You could be taking this more seriously, you know. They already think you did it.” _

_ “Yes, but I didn’t, so,” I hand him a glass of water. “They won’t arrest me. They have no proof.” _

_ “Villanelle, I need you to realize how bad this is. This is very, very, very bad. You could go to jail and for a very long time. I cannot protect you from this, I cannot make this go away, I cannot —“ _

_ “You don’t believe me, do you?” _

_ He puts his water glass down and stands up. He heads for the door, but I stand in front of it. “Do you?” I ask him again. _

_ “...Where were you? You were gone the night before and that day, for a very long time. You weren’t here. So where were you?” _

_ “I was out. But I didn’t do it.” _

_ “Really?” _

_ “Really, really.” _

_ “Then tell me where this is from,” he grabbed my arm and turned it so we could both see the bandage that I put on my arm. My cut is not healing well. Not well at all. “Because to me, it looks like a defensive injury.” _

_ I rip my arm out of his grasp and look him dead in the eye so he knows how serious I am. “...Never question me like that again. I mean it.” _

_ He blows air out of his nose and elbows me out of the way. _

_ “Where are you going?” I ask. “I made sausages, you could stay!” _

_ “I have a few phone calls to make,” he says. _

**~ ~ ~**

I reached my hand out too and took hers in it.

Her hand was soft just like I thought it would be and I really didn’t picture our first time holding hands to be like this, only coming from us shaking on a deal. But it was every bit as perfect as I thought it would be.

“Deal,” I said and shook.

She pulled her hand out of my grasp and it was only then that I realized how tight I had been squeezing hers. She sat up a little straighter and made eye contact with me.

“I’m here because they’re building a case against you. And they want me to evaluate you just to make sure you’re of sane mind. Because they want to be prepared to shoot down the clinically insane defense,” she explained. And that time, I could tell that she was being honest.

Nervous was all over me again. My hands got sweaty and under the table, my leg started to shake.

“Who is ‘they’?”

“MI6.”

I bit on my bottom lip and thought, _ how am I going to get out of this if they’re building a case? _

“Now will you tell me who Konstantin really is?” she asked.

I hesitated. It was then that I knew that if I wanted to get out of this, I would have to start telling bigger lies. And maybe even telling the truth. And that started with Eve.

“How much do you know about me, Eve?”

“I know that you are Russian. I know that you’ve been to two juvenile detention centers and a prison in Moscow. I know you have a pretty… lengthy record of violent attacks, mostly against men. I know that you have no parents. Or at least, you don’t know of them…” she kept going but I stopped listening for a second when she said that. And I touched the cut on my arm that still wasn’t healing properly. “And I know that you have been evaluated before but never had an official diagnosis.”

“...what else?”

“That’s… well that’s it on my end. Everything else I hope to find out through our sessions.”

“Konstantin is my —“

Just then, the door swung open. And it made us both jump and snap back to reality. It was intense for a moment and it felt like we were the only two on the entire planet. Looking into her eyes has that effect on me it seems.

“Times up,” the guard said.

“It’s been an hour already?” Eve asked.

“Afraid so,” the guard nodded.

“Okay,” Eve sighed. “Give me two minutes to wrap the session up.” The guard disappeared again and as soon as the door slammed, Eve looked at me again. It was less intense this time. “Continue?”

“...Konstantin is my handler. He gives me all of my assignments.” I mumbled as I stood up.

“Handler? You mean like a… like an…” It thought it was cute listening to her sort it all out in her beautiful brain. I’d like to listen to it all day, but the guard banged his fist on the door so I had to drag my handcuffed feet over to it. “Assignments? Villanelle, you mean like… like an assassin? Are you… are you an… an assassin?”

Before I walked through the door, I just looked at her one last time. I didn’t tell her yes or no, but I think that she knew. I didn’t have to say it. So instead, all I said before I left was:

“You should check your bag. For your tape recorder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... who believes that Villanelle didn’t do it and who believes that she did... but maybe she had a reason?


End file.
